In the Kitchen (17 page)

Gabe had only ever seen one person drink Blue Curaçao before and that was Nana. She liked the green stuff too, crčme de menthe, which tasted like medicine as far as Gabe was concerned. 'Search me. He looks quite sad, Salim.

I wonder what his story is.'

Benny shrugged. 'He is from Somalia. That is a story, for true.'

'What about you, Benny?'

'Chef ?'

'Well,' said Gabe. 'I don't know. I guess we're just having a bit of a chat here. What about your family? Have you got someone waiting for you at home?'

'It depends,' said Benny, slowly, 'on what you mean by home. You have your lady friend waiting for you?'

Lena was waiting for him. Gabe shivered. The thought of her drew and repelled him, like an image of an atrocity at which he could not look and from which he could not turn away. 'Not tonight,' he said, 'she's working abroad for a while. What do you call home, then? You tell me.'

'Ah,' said Benny. He shook his large head and gazed at Gabriel with his yellowy eyes. Head aside, Benny was compact, undersized even, but there was nothing stunted about his physique. He made Gabriel feel his extra inches as something superfluous, extra blood and bone and tissue which could be removed without taking anything essential away.

'Only making conversation,' said Gabriel. 'Let's talk about something else.'

'A friend of mine,' said Benny, 'is Somali, like Salim. He lived in Mogadishu and he was a driver. If you heard his story ... eh, heh, heh.' Benny's laugh was deep-throated, laden with a meaning that was not clear to Gabe.

'Go on,' said Gabe, 'what happened to your friend?'

'Too many things,' said Benny. 'Chef, is there anything about work you are wanting to discuss with me?'

Gabe had considered asking Benny about Victor and Ivan, what lay behind the flare-up today, but Benny had a diplomat's gift for deflection, was a master at smoothing things over. They could talk but nothing, he knew, would be said.

'We're off duty, Benny, let's give ourselves a break. I'd rather listen to a story about your friend.'

'Do you know,' said Benny, 'you can buy a national insurance number, you can buy a passport, an identity, and also you can buy a story. If you think your own story is not strong enough, if you worry that your own suffering is not sufficient to gain permission to stay in this country, you can buy a story and take it with you to this government office in Croydon. Somali stories can get a high price.'

'I suppose,' said Gabe, 'that everything is for sale.'

'And if you tell your own story, you may not be believed. "Lack of credibility." That is the stamp they use. I know somebody that this happened to.'

Gabe yawned comfortably. He knew the type of thing that was coming, but he didn't mind. 'Where was he from?'

'The Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was a professor of economics at the University of Kinshasa, a very clever man.' Benny chuckled, as if to say, well, there is the problem, right there.

'And? He got put in prison?' Benny, he could see, was hesitating, not knowing how much to say. After-work drinks meant bitching, ribbing, gossiping, not telling tales of woe.

'He was involved in opposition politics. The first time he was arrested, they extracted most of his teeth.' Benny looked at Gabriel, checking, it seemed, whether he had gone too far. Gabe nodded, as if this detail was only to be expected. 'The next time,' said Benny, speaking quickly, 'that they locked him up they did not torture him, but when he was released he went home and discovered that they had killed his wife and children. With the help of a colleague he fled to Zambia and from there he came to the UK. A happy end, you think?'

'I'm guessing no,' said Gabe. Benny, who had antique good manners, had got the story over with as fast as possible, not wanting to be a bore.

Benny lifted his glass with his peculiar one-finger salute. 'No,' he said, and took a gulp. 'Lack of credibility. They asked him all sorts of questions. They asked how many children he had and how many had been killed. Eleven, he told them. And how many, they asked again, have died? Eleven, he said again. He should have said two or three. That was his mistake. We do not believe your story, they told him. It lacks cred-i-bil-ity.' He made the word go on for ever, a long indictment, a litany of crime.

'After all that, they turned him away?'

'They were right. But also wrong. It is not credible but it is true. What is a man to do?'

Gabriel bought more drinks. He went to the jukebox and scanned it. Nothing had changed. Dylan, the Stones, Springsteen, Neil Young, Deep Purple, Meat Loaf and the Pogues. Dusty had been known to ban people who had the temerity to ask for new tunes. 'What's the point of having my own place,' he'd say, 'some cunt comes along, tells me what to do?' The jukebox was vintage, a '73 Wurlitzer that played 45s, with a design aesthetic that hovered somewhere between spaceship and Tiffany lamp. Gabriel punched in the number for 'Southern Man'

and gave the old beast a slap on the flank as if it were a pit pony on its way to the knacker's yard.

'I have talked too much,' said Benny, when Gabe sat down again. He rearranged the table, straightening the napkins, the bowl of peanuts, the cardboard coasters, the drinks, his fingers working deftly, flying over the objects and moving them as if by magnetic force or magic, displaying the dextrous touch of an able chef.

'No,' said Gabe, 'not at all.'

'If I had a woman,' said Benny, 'I would not bring her here.' A couple at the bar had locked mouths. 'This is killing romance.

Romance is better than sex.'

'Ideally you get both,' said Gabe, thinking about Lena's offer. He'd have to go and face her soon. 'Did you say you were from Congo as well?'

'Liberia,' said Benny. 'Small country, big troubles.' He shook his head.

'Right,' said Gabriel, vaguely. 'Good idea to get out.'

'There was fighting. I ran away.' Benny shrugged.

'You came straight to London?' Gabriel was grateful for this abbreviated history. On the one hand he was idly curious to hear Benny's background, on the other he did not wish to be burdened with it. If he had to yell at Benny about something, or even give him the sack, he preferred not to know about any terrible things he might have been through. He was only keeping him talking to put off the inevitable: going home.

'I went with some others to Cairo because I heard that they help Liberians there. After two years of waiting I was interviewed by the United Nations officials and after another year of waiting I was offered resettlement here. I used these years of waiting to improve my English.'

'Your English is excellent,' said Gabriel.

'Thank you. English is our official language in Liberia. But if I talk Liberian English,' he said, his accent thickening, 'it g'wan vex you plenty-plenty.'

How did I get myself into this thing with Lena, thought Gabriel. But it wasn't even something he had got himself into. It was something that had happened to him. He didn't, after all, ask for her to appear like that in the yard. 'So,'

he said to Benny, 'Liberia is not a good place to be.'

'I can tell you another story,' said Benny. 'Perhaps it is more interesting than my own.'

'Please,' said Gabriel, 'go on.'

'This friend, Kono, is also Liberian. He is around my age, and we are very close. He is from Nimba county, one of the Gio people.' Benny stopped. He appeared to have a change of heart. 'Well, it is getting late.'

'We haven't finished our drinks,' said Gabriel. Lena, he thought. Oh, God.

'All right,' said Benny. 'When Charles Taylor's men first came through this area, in 1989, Kono's village was untouched because the Gios supported Taylor.

But the following year the trouble began. Taylor's men – he was the rebel leader and later he was the president – had some disagreement with the headman of the village. This man was Kono's father. Two days later, these rebel soldiers, they returned.

'They dragged Kono's mother and father and his four brothers and sisters out of the house. The parents they shot. The children they beat to death with rifle butts. It saves on bullets, you see. Kono lived because he was the eldest and a boy and the rebels recruited him in this way. He was twelve then.'

'Christ,' said Gabe. He knew what was going to happen with Lena. That was what he was trying to avoid, sitting here listening to this stuff that nobody, to be honest, wanted to hear.

'I know,' said Benny, laughing, 'I know. The rebels took Kono and they put him to work. At first he fetched water and dug latrines. After a while, he was taken on a raid and ordered to shoot one of the prisoners – a pregnant woman.

The rebels beat him, but still he refused. Are you sure I should go on? A short time later, on another raid, he was told, "It is time for your initiation now." Kono was reluctant but the unit leader took a knife and started to cut Kono. This gave him the encouragement he needed.'

'So now he was a rebel soldier himself ?' He knew what was going to happen with Lena. But where was the knife at Gabriel's throat? He was free to choose, was he not?

'A child soldier,' said Benny. 'This is what my country is famous for.

They put him on a checkpoint, another Liberian speciality. This one was decorated with human skulls and it was called No Way Back because ... well, I think you can guess, eh, heh, heh. For nearly three years Kono went on raids and guarded the checkpoint. This was his life.' Benny, it turned out, was quite a raconteur, once he got going. 'All the child soldiers had nicknames.

Death Squad, Lethal Weapon, Killer Dog ... Kono was not very tall for his age and his nickname was General Shoot-On-Tiptoes, for obvious reasons I think.'

'I get it,' said Gabe. He had to admit there were places, there were times, when your life was taken out of your hands.

'He did what child soldiers do and had cornrows and cowries in his hair, and every day he got high.'

Gabriel had no such excuse. If he wanted to sleep with Lena, how could he kid himself that it was 'just going to happen'? As if he were the victim of history, of war, of fate.

'Then one day Kono went on a raid and they did the usual stuff, raping, looting, killing. When they had finished this work they relaxed for a while in this village. Some of the boy soldiers began playing football and Kono went to join in. He saw that they were using a woman's head for a ball. Kono joined in the game.'

Gabriel looked sharply at Benny.

'I can see what you are thinking,' said Benny, 'heh, heh, you are thinking how can a human being do this? Even myself, I am thinking the same. What is it that makes us human? Are we just animals, after all?'

'This is your friend?' said Gabe. Lena, he thought, with a sudden, low ache, would be pacing, waiting for him to get home. How could he be thinking of Lena, right now, this second? What was wrong with him?

'We are very close. After this day, he knew he had to get out. He decided he would rather die than stay. So when he was sent to the market one day to get food – take it, not buy it, you understand – he ran away. For a while he lived on the street in Monrovia, expecting every day to be his last. Then he met a friend of his father's, a Libyan businessman, who helped him get to Cairo.

That is when I met him, ex-General Shoot-On-Tiptoes, Kono, my good friend.'

Benny laughed. He clapped his hands, wrung them together briefly and then put his jacket on. Gabe caught a flicker of understanding. For an instant he saw it clearly, knew why Benny laughed. He knew it deeply, instinctively, momentarily before he lost the perception again.

'Now,' said Benny, getting up, 'all he has left of that time are the nightmares. But nightmares won't kill you, he says.'

They left the bar and Benny walked towards Oxford Street to wait for the night bus. Gabriel watched him for a few moments, the tiger dancing on his back, stepping in and out of the shadows, his stories packed and stowed; a small black man on his way to or from a shift, hurrying, looking down and walking away, until the city claimed him and Gabriel turned and hailed a cab.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE WATCHED HER SLEEPING NOW, HIS HAND HELD AS IF IN A FORCE field directly above her throat, as though to absorb or else heal her through the pulse that throbbed at the base of his thumb. Lena, in the marbled moonlight, was a carved beauty, a dying swan. Her lips were sheened to perfection, her flawless cheeks were pearled, and the unfathomable beauty of her eyelids would make a convert of any man. There she lay, his irritant, his ache, his skinny girl, colourless hair spread across the pillow, his salvation, his ruin, or neither, but simply his release.

Lena stirred and opened her eyes. Gabe, on his knees at her side, pulled back with guilty speed, as if he had been stealing. Her mouth stretched to form an 'O' and closed again. For a long, frozen moment they looked at each other and Gabe's ears filled with the pounding of blood. She raised an arm and put her hand against his chest. She slid it inside his shirt. When he moved on top of her it was with a grace and ease he had not known he possessed. Her hard little fingers moved through his hair. Am I the kind of person who does this?

he thought. Is this me, am I this type? And then there was only the movement, the heat, the wet, the rub, the glide, the ripples across his back, and he dissolved, no I, no me, no who, but only this, their bodies, and nothing more.

They unwound from each other and parted, Gabriel sitting on the sofa and Lena tugging down her skirt but still reclining, head against the sofa's arm.

Gabriel came back to himself. Oh shit, he said silently, but it was mere experiment, the regret that he expected had not reported for duty yet. He ran his fingers around her kneecap and stroked her thigh, waiting for his breath to settle down. Lena was looking at the ceiling, her lips pressed together, arms crossed on her chest, laid out like a graveyard statue.

'Lena,' said Gabe, tenderly pinching the thin, soft flesh. 'I looked for the money.'

Lena let out a slow exhale. 'I know what you will say.'

'I went down there,' said Gabe. 'I counted the bricks, four from the right and ...'